So, I managed to play a little since my last post in this topic, logged some info from the battles into the spreadsheet, and here i am, going “s kůží na trh” how we say in our country, so i fully expect, and accept, getting called out on my skill issue.
Bit of foreword.
When it comes to air RB, im below average to average player, orbiting around 1.0 K/D overall. Getting it out of the way now.
My monthly air RB stats:

My overall air RB stats:

Both taken from statshark.
Ive ran spaded MiG-23MLA with lvl 75 expert crew.
Loadout:
- 4x R60Mk
- 2X R24R
- CM pod
- Air belts
- 23 min. of fuel
- CMs split between 48x flares and 24x chaff
Ive logged time played, activity in %, kills, deaths and assists, and things i died to. I also logged what i think was the primary cause of my death:
- skill issue = self explanatory
- positioning = still skill issue, but death was preventable if i didnt run directly into middle of the enemy team
- radar not working = losing a headon in situation when radar absolutely shouldve locked
Ive logged 20 battles. Small sample size, i know. I realistically played 23ish battles, but didnt log 3 of them because i had to take a work call and i dont believe a game where ones attention wasnt on the screen most of the time should count.
I went into this because i wanted to see whenever:
- F/A-18s truly ruined 11.7
- MiG-23ML/MLA/MLD was currently bad
With that out of the way, heres the spreadsheet:
Couple of notes:
- I really didnt notice whenever F/A-18s ruined 11.7 since I never encountered any. Sure they were in SOME games, but their presence was overall low
- What really did surprise me was amount of deaths that came from MiG-23MLs with R24Rs. Which is funny due to the next point
- I dont know if i was dropped on head as baby, ate too much glue in preschool or what, but the MiG-23s radar is absolutely terrible. Hence the “radar refused to lock” cause of death. I tried shouting. I tried begging. I tried to suck off that radar before the battle. Nothing helped. Flying low, flying high, not flying at all. The radar simply refuses to lock even under the most ideal conditions. Both ACM and locking scanned target simply refuse to lock enemy aircraft. Everytime i entered headon, i went through 5 stages of grief in span of seconds. MTI turned on randomly - i thought it activates around 2km whenever the nose dips below the horizon, but on some maps, i had to fly as low as 1.4km for it to activate.
- On more positive note, R24Rs were great (when the radar worked and accidentaly locked enemy plane), absolutely lethal below 10km and suprisingly capable in tracking rear aspect shots.
To conclude, MiG-23 seems fine. IMO if it was bad, below average to average player like me wouldnt be able to orbit around 1.0 KD. Ill admit i was little bit biased because i spaded it during 2023 when it was still able to choose MTI manually and if Gaijin ever decides to fix it radar, its fine where it is, maybe even 12.0 worthy.